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The traditional Alaskan roadhouse may seem like an endangered species, but there’s one that’s alive and well on Mile 153 of the Glenn Highway, near Glennallen.
The Mendeltna Creek Lodge has been part of the landscape along the Glenn Highway since the 1940’s. But it was a lot smaller in those days. Over the years, there have been a number of different owners, but probably none quite like Russ and Mabel Wimmer.
They cook. They clean. They wait the tables, pretty much by themselves. They say they can’t afford to pay for much hired help.
“I’m very, very organized,” says Mabel, 55, who has a reputation for occasionally being difficult to deal with. But what would you expect from a woman who has been married five times? Russ, himself, has had a total of three marriages. So far, the couple has managed to stay together more than ten years.
“My shelf life on a husband is five years,” says Mabel, laughing. “And since he (Russ) works on the Slope, that’s it. Half the time he’s gone. So the marriage has longevity.”
Wimmer, 61, is a drilling supervisor for Eni Petroleum on Spy Island, north of Kuparuk. He works the standard North Slope schedule – two weeks on and one week off. But he says, on his week off, he’s pretty busy at the lodge.
“It’s actually easier on the Slope, than 18 hour days here,” says Wimmer.
Despite that, Wimmer says the work at the Mendeltna Creek Lodge gives him a lot of satisfaction. He cuts, by hand, all the wood that feeds the lodge’s stone fireplace.
“You get all that wood stacked up – you look at it and say, ‘That’ll get me through the winter.’ That makes you feel real good,” said Wimmer.
The Wimmers own about 33 acres, which includes a campground that hugs the creek.
“I would assume that everybody that’s traveled in Alaska has seen a roadhouse or two,” says Suzanne Hickman, a frequent visitor from Valdez.
Hickman says there are some lodges that embodies the Alaska roadhouse culture more than others. “And this is it on steroids.”
The Mendeltna roadhouse even has a murder mystery, chronicled in Tom Brennan’s book, “Cold Crime.”
Brennan tells the story of another couple who bought the lodge in 1965, Elmer and Bonnie Haab. In a chapter Brennan called, “Mystery in Mendeltna,” Bonnie is described as a petite woman, who neighbors noticed had, all too often, cuts and bruises on her face. She disappeared in 1966.
Haab later claimed to Alaska State Troopers that his wife died accidentally, but he was afraid no one would believe him -- so he burned her body to cover up her death. Some of her ashes were thrown into Mendeltna Creek.
But many of the locals believe her ghost still haunts the lodge.
“I feel her presence right here,” says Mabel, pointing to the coffee pot in the kitchen. She also says her spirit has been felt at the end of the bar.
“Once you feel it,” says Mabel, “it’s kind of hard to deny.”
Over the years, Wimmer says there were times when the lodge felt especially dark and gloomy – and she stop being surprised when those days coincided with deaths in the community.
But Wimmer says she doesn’t feel threatened by the ghost of Bonnie Haab.
